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Galacticraft 4

Galacticraft 4 (GC4) is the latest release in the Galacticraft mod series. Galacticraft 4 was in beta testing through early 2017, and officially released on May 27, 2017.

GC4 is available in versions for Minecraft 1.8.9, Minecraft 1.10.2 and Minecraft 1.11.2, so that players can pick a version matching any other mods they want to use with Galacticraft. The features and gameplay in all three versions are the same!

The main additions in GC4 include the beautiful new planet Venus and many things found there, including new ores, sulphuric acid pools, gas spouts, crashed probes, a new dungeon type and the Spider Queen. Heading in the other direction, there are spectacular Abandoned Bases to discover in the Asteroids dimension. These contain clues to further things...

Sapphire Ore on the Moon, yields blue sapphires which can be used for trading with Alien Villagers

New space base building blocks:

Fluid pipes - these replace Oxygen Pipes in earlier Galacticraft versions, and can transport oxygen gas or many other types of gas or liquid, including a simple "pull" mechanism (when right-clicked with a Standard Wrench) to pump liquids out of a tank

Fluid tanks - simple glass tanks which can hold 16 buckets of any liquid or gas - stack them vertically to make larger tanks

Switchable Aluminium Wire - make all your power circuits turn off and onable with this redstone operated switch wire

Magnetic Crafting Table - a crafting table which holds its inventory, and can be placed on its side or even upside-down! Smart Shift-clicking of items into the crafting table. It remembers its last recipe to give simple automated crafting using Hoppers (or item pipes). And an attractive grey color!

Lighting Panels - cool flat panels for giving a space base look to your lighting, in many different designs. Can be set in-game to match the texture of any block, by holding the Lighting Panel and shift-right-clicking against the block whose texture you want to copy. Can be colored for any color of lighting.

Deconstructor - a machine which takes apart your old rockets (and any other items) and salvages around 70-75% of the metals and compressed metals for re-use (from 4.0.0.112)

Chromatic Applicator - a machine which changes the color of: Vacuum Glass frames, Lighting Panel lights. Can use any custom color, you can create colors by blending dyes and blocks. (There may be other colorable blocks added in future.)

Hidden Redstone wire and Hidden Redstone repeaters - these are solid blocks which function like redstone

Dark decoration block - a near-black block for building space bases with a dark theme

Crashed Probe - some metals are recoverable from this, also contains a Thermionic Core used to craft an Atomic Battery

Geothermal Generator

Venus dungeon blocks, Web Torches and Tier 3 Treasure Chest

Spider Queen and 'Juicers' (small spiders)

New items:

Volcanic Pickaxe - break multiple blocks at the same time;

Tier 2 Thermal Padding - needed to keep the player cool in the extreme heat of Venus;

Shield Controller - provides a shield to protect the player's armor, without this the dangerously acidic atmosphere of Venus will destroy any armor - with this your armor is protected from all standard damage including player attack damage, so it's like an infinite Unbreaking enchantment;

Lead ingot

Atomic Battery, a low-powered infinite battery available without being in Creative Mode

Existing features and compatibility

Galacticraft 4 will include everything which was already in Galacticraft 3, updated for the latest Minecraft versions.

Galacticraft 4 again has very wide compatibility with other mods, like Galacticraft 3. All energy systems in Galacticraft 4 interface correctly with RF power and with IndustrialCraft2 and Mekanism, so that players and modpack makers can pick any of these tech mods. Fluid sytems should also be compatible with everything.

Galacticraft 4 again gives the option of using PlayerAPI for compatibility with other mods which conflict without it.

You may notice a few blocks (for example Cryogenic Chamber) have a slightly different appearance in Galacticraft 4. This is to improve overall performance (better FPS).

Galacticraft 4 has an API usable by add-on creators and other mods. This gives add-ons (and other mods) more capabilities than ever before. New aspects include adding gravity items to reverse the effects of Zero Gravity on Space Stations - for example Gravity Boots - and allowing other Forge mods to add their own mobs on Galacticraft planets.

Gameplay differences

Venus will require a Tier 3 rocket to reach it. That's because it's a more challenging planet than Mars. So players should be visiting Mars first and then have the choice of heading outwards to Asteroids or inwards to Venus.

Many detailed improvements to the gameplay and mechanics:

Astro Miner will now keep on mining properly even if it moves into unloaded chunks far from the player - it shouldn't ever get lost, even mining distant asteroids in the Asteroids dimension

Rocket transfers to the Celestial Selection screen and, from there into a Lander, are smoother

New holding screen (similar to the Generating Terrain screen) so no more visual glitches when changing dimensions

Many machine sides have configurable electric and pipe inputs, see list above

Improved dungeon generation on Moon and Mars, all dungeons have boss and treasure rooms

Alien Villagers will trade items for sapphires. They will trade Schematics with you if you end up with two Moon Buggies and no Tier 2 Rocket

Arc Lamp lights in a more natural cone, and scares off hostile mobs more effectively

Cryogenic Chamber now advances the time to next morning only in the dimension where it is, time in other dimensions is not affected (this change is also included in the final versions of Galacticraft 3)

Servers and Sponge

Most large multiplayer servers will want to be running Sponge, as Bukkit doesn't exist for the recent Minecraft versions. (As an alternative to Sponge you can also look for simpler server mods like ForgeEssentials.)

Galacticraft 4, versions for Minecraft 1.10.2 and 1.11.2, are Sponge compatible on servers. The Galacticraft developers have worked with Sponge to fix a couple of bugs in Sponge, to ensure that it works for you!

But: unless there's a strong reason why you need to use a bleeding-edge version of Sponge, we strongly recommend that server owners use these specific Sponge versions:

These are fairly recent versions from March 2017. All Sponge versions after these include an unnecessary 'CauseTracker' which breaks some of Galacticraft's systems - and also breaks some functions in a few other Forge mods. We have reported the issue to Sponge devs but they haven't yet taken any action to fix it. You will need the exact matching Forge versions as noted above. These are pretty much the recommended versions of Forge anyhow.

(If you do not use the Sponge versions we recommend here, then you will likely find that Sponge breaks Galacticraft lander spawning client-side after rocket flights. Sponge can also prevent players from seeing rockets newly placed on launch pads client-side, and moon buggy on buggy pads, astro miner in astro miner dock, etc etc. All these issues are fixable by players re-logging, but you don't want to force your players to re-log all the time... so be smart and use the versions of Sponge we recommend.)